Reviews for 'American Crime Story' about Gianni Versace's assassination are in — and critics say it's a gripping murder tale

Darren Criss as the serial killer Andrew Cunanan in "The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story."
FX

FX and Ryan Murphy followed up "The People v. O. J. Simpson" with "The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story."

It's a more ambitious psychological study than the first show, but not as successful.

Still, the murder mystery is a smart study of the killer Andrew Cunanan and of homophobia in the 1990s.

After rave reviews for "The People v. O. J. Simpson," FX's "American Crime Story" series had high expectations.

Show creator Ryan Murphy kept it just as ambitious, exploring the 1997 murder of legendary fashion designer Gianni Versace, with "The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story." FX also amped up the star power, casting Édgar Ramírez as Gianni Versace and Darren Criss as his murderer, Andrew Cunanan, with additional roles by Ricky Martin and Penélope Cruz.

The general consensus among critics is that "Versace" isn't quite as sharp as "The People vs. O.J.," but it's still a gripping murder tale that scrapes away the tabloidy froth and finds a smart character study underneath.

Here's what the critics are saying:

The story works backwards, showing the murder first. It doesn't quite work.

"Because the show doesn't have a substantive exploration of why, exactly, Mr. Cunanan became a murderer, it toys with the when and the how of it all, primarily by introducing an often-confusing timeline. Each episode primarily takes place chronologically before the last, so the show largely moves backward. But this winds up being more obfuscating than illuminating."

Until now, the Versace story wasn't given its due.

"Versace's demise didn't hit the same personal or political nerve with the American public or the media, largely because Cunanan was a male escort and the majority of his victims were gay. While the murder made for salacious "Hard Copy" headlines, even as a victim Versace didn't elicit the same kind of love as accused murderer Simpson. And here that disparity is painfully present across all nine episodes. After the initial tabloid intrigue, his killing was largely considered a gay on gay crime."

The show doesn't quite work when it addresses institutional homophobia.

"The series does well with 'What a difference 20 years makes' glimpses at how being gay, and openly gay, impacted the way people lived their lives in 1997. But there's a leap to how that led to different treatment under the law that I believe completely in theory, but not at all in how it's executed here."

"Assassination" focuses more on the killer than Versace himself.

"It's Darren Criss as Cunanan who leaves the biggest impression. Criss is best known as a dreamy song-and-dance man from 'Glee,' and his take on Cunanan is the very best kind of take on a dark character. He doesn't want to create empathy for Cunanan so much as a kind of understanding. You are invited to think about him less as a person and more as an aberration, like some dark part of America's worst self-made flesh. This is going to redefine Criss's career, and it deserves to."

The mystery of Andrew Cunanan only makes him more compelling.

"But there is little to no law enforcement in 'Assassination,' and we are left only with our fascination, which feels as sordid and voyeuristic as it does warranted. How did Andrew Cunanan become Andrew Cunanan? Insofar as it can, the series tries to answer this question, but there will always be something unsatisfactory in doing so: There is no serial killer math. Some mysterious factors are always part of the equation."

The supporting cast is also excellent.

"What really makes this series excel is an inarguably stellar supporting cast. It's impossible to turn away from Penélope Cruz as Donatella Versace, wearing a black-laced veil as she confronts her brother's corpse; Edgar Ramírez as Gianni is commanding and quietly tortured; Max Greenfield is superb as a South Beach junkie who crosses paths with Cunanan and makes it out alive; Finn Wittrock, playing a closeted naval officer after the signing of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, is the first of Cunanan's victims; and Judith Light, in a single-episode cameo as the widow of the Chicago real estate developer Lee Miglin, is, well, Judith Light (read: brilliant). Murphy's heavy-handedness is not to everyone's liking, but he always manages to squeeze all the pulp out of his performers."

While "Assassination" isn't as successful as "The People vs. OJ," it's more ambitious.

"To me, the show is both balm and menace, lurid exploitation and primal scream. The series doesn't have the seismic, prestige heft of 'People v. O.J.,' and it doesn't share its forebear's piercing intelligence. But in its messy and obliterating swirl, 'The Assassination of Gianni Versace' does something ambitious and rattling. It frames a gay disaster as an intrinsically American one, binding personal values with national ones, tethering one sense of self-worth to another."